Check the video above, Shawn Kemp’s honorable mention dunks are better than most player’s best ever. The Reign Man was an absolute terror on the break and with Gary Payton throwing him lobs, Kemp put struck fear into opposing big men during his prime years.

For his 47th birthday, the NBA put together a compilation of Kemp’s top-50 career dunks. Check it above.

Almost a decade after the city of Seattle saw Shawn Kemp leave the Super Sonics, the name has once again found itself back on the court and in conversation among basketball fans in the area. This time, though, is due to his 15-year-old son putting in work at the high school level. A 6-6 sophomore forward at Garfield HS in Seattle, the younger Kemp has been showing potential. Having reportedly received an offer from Montana while also some early interest from the Washington Huskies, Jamon is only one year into his high school career. Touted for his long arms, passing abilities, versatility and being a slasher, we can only expect for his game to continue rising over the next three years. Check out the video above from Courtside Films to peep his performance this past summer in the AAU circuit.

This weekend was one for second comings. LeBron James Jr. showed out in his hometown of Akron and in Indianapolis, while Shaq’s son Shareef was showing that he’s a high major prospect at the EYBL. Twenty miles away from the Nike event, there was another NBA legend’s son doing work: Shawn Kemp’s son Jamon.

Bearing a striking resemblance to his father, Jamon doesn’t quite have the size of his Pops, but already has some skills on the outside. Running with Washington Supreme of the Under Armour Association, Kemp had no problem fitting in despite playing up a year. He defended multiple positions on the perimeter, blocked a ton of shots, and was a beast on the offensive glass. The Seattle Garfield product hit a couple of deep jumpers and made some good slashes to the rack, too. Shawn Kemp had an older son, Shawn Kemp Jr., who wrapped up a collegiate career at the University of Washington in 2015. While the younger Jamon doesn’t quite have the Reign Man’s bounce or size yet, the 6-foot-5 swingman has the athleticism and game to develop into a serious prospect down the road.

Former Sonics great Shawn Kemp co-hosted a party Thursday night with DJ Clinton Sparks and rapper Neema Khorrami to celebrate the Thunder’s latest stumble.

Per the Seattle Times:

That’s right, Emerald City hoops fans can breathe easy once again knowing the Larry O’Brien Trophy will not be hoisted by Clay Bennett in Oklahoma City this year. Entering (Wednesday) night, the Thunder were in a heated race to capture the eighth and final seed in the Western Conference, but thanks to a New Orleans victory over San Antonio, their championship hopes were dashed once again.

And though former Sonics fans haven’t had much reason to celebrate NBA games since the team bolted to Oklahoma, the fact that their former team has been ruled out of the playoffs seems to be reason enough for a party. Sonics legend Shawn Kemp will be at Neumos co-hosting a party celebrating the Thunder’s failed playoff run and more Thursday night at Neumos on Capitol Hill in Seattle. DJ Clinton Sparks and rapper Neema will also host the event, which begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15.

The Reebok Pump Kamikaze II draws inspiration from both the Pump Twilight Zone, made famous by Dominique Wilkins, and the Kamikaze Mid II, made famous by Shawn Kemp.

The Pump Kamikaze II drops on March 13 for $125, and last month at All-Star Weekend in NYC, both The Human Highlight Film and Reign Man had a chance to sit down and discuss the design behind the sneaker with Sway Calloway.

Believe it or not, the ’95 All-Star Game featured some wildly talented dudes. Grant Hill, Shawn Kemp, Scottie Pippen, Charles Barkley, Penny Hardaway, Shaq, Zo and more were all there, and threw down a total of 29 dunks throughout the game. Enjoy watching each and every one of them.

Basketball fans of all ages know the Reign Man. Nearly 20 years after his NBA Finals appearance alongside Gary Payton as a member of the Seattle SuperSonics and more than a decade since his last NBA game, Shawn Kemp’s legacy as one of the most explosive and fearsome athletes the league has ever seen still stands strong.

Kemp was on hand at the Reebok Classic Breakout camp, featuring 140 of the nation’s top high school players, to dispense some wisdom to the younger generation. While the campers remember his ferocious dunks, they probably don’t know the twisted path he took to get the NBA. Kemp enrolled at the University of Kentucky, but never played due to off-court issues, then transferred to a junior college, where he also never played, before finally entering the 1989 Draft.

Kemp stressed the importance of hard work to the campers, telling them, “If you think you’ve worked hard already, you haven’t. If you think you’re good enough, you’re not.”

After sharing his experiences with the crowd, Kemp took some time to talk to SLAM about his experiences at high school camps, what he’s up to and his thoughts on today’s game.

SLAM: You were known for your dunking back in the day. Do you have any favorites that stand out? I know the Lister Blister is one people always bring up.

Shawn Kemp: Not really dunks, man. I was just into making exciting plays, whether it be a dunk, the finger roll. I always enjoyed making the play that was going to make the difference.

SLAM: You kind of had a twisted path getting to the NBA, bouncing between schools and community colleges. How important is it when you see these kids to make sure that they’re showing up and getting their best opportunity to go to college?

SK: Oh, it’s very important. These kids have to understand that opportunity always comes, but you don’t always get opportunities to be successful. So hard work makes that difference with the chances that you get. Nobody can tell you what you do in this world, but if you work your butt off you can get anything accomplished. That’s really my message to them. Kids have so many options these days in life, what they can do, the one thing they have to do is just work hard.

SLAM: How’s the whole circuit changed since you were coming up, you came up in the late ’80s. What are the biggest differences you see?

SK: Not a whole lot of big difference. There’s probably more corporations and stuff that’s involved now, but it’s pretty much the same thing, man. The same sweat, the same grind, the same mission. These kids are doing the same thing that we were trying to get accomplished. Some of us got the message and some of us didn’t. When you’re a kid, you can’t take days off. At these camps, you have to perform at the highest level every day and that’s what they have to understand.

SLAM: With social media, cell phones, kids know who their competition is. Did you know who you were going up against?

SK: I knew who the best players were, simply because I started playing AAU at a very young age. I got a chance to travel around the world and see a lot of different players at an early age. It kind of sticks with you when you can measure the talent that’s out there, if you can see guys in California and guys in New York, you kind of have a measuring stick, and that’s really the only stick that you need. The social media stuff is good, sometimes it’s too much, but these kids only have to have a little bit just to see what kind of measuring stick, where they are on the talent level.

SLAM: What kind of involvement do you have with the game today? With the NBA, high school, AAU level, are you involved with the game at all?

SK: Absolutely, absolutely. I live in Seattle, WA, where I work and own a restaurant out there in Seattle. I just had a Reebok camp out there for the top-100 kids in the whole state of Washington. Me and my wife also run a college summer league, the pro-am league (Northwest Summer Pro League). We work with all the elementary, junior high kids, try to push just to work hard, to love the game but to have a passion to work hard continuously. Sometimes, kids don’t have that understanding. I enjoy playing the game, but I enjoy sending this message out to the younger kids that they continually have to get better.

SLAM: Being in Seattle, how tough is it not having an NBA team there right now?

SK: Oh, it sucks! It does, man. Even though Portland’s right around the corner, it sucks.

SLAM: That was one of Seattle’s biggest rivals when they were around.

SK: Yeah, man. It’s a big rival. You know what, it feels like we’re missing a big part of the game. I enjoy watching the younger guys come up, I didn’t just enjoy playing the game. So I want to see LeBron, I want to see Kobe, I want to see some of these younger guys develop. We’re anxious to get a team back in Seattle as soon as possible.

SLAM: When you came into the League, your athleticism and explosiveness kind of changed the game for the power forward position. A couple of years ago, Amar’e Stoudemire was getting those comparisons to you. Do you see anybody in the League now that has a game like yours?

SK: I think Blake Griffin would be the closest thing, probably, to myself, but he’s a little bit undersized, a little bit smaller than me, but I would definitely see I see a lot of myself in Blake.

SLAM: Do you think your game would fit into the game today? How do you think you’d adjust?

SK: Definitely, definitely. I was first a finesse player, a guy who could run, who could shoot, dribble. Definitely, I would have loved to play in today’s game because I had the speed to do it. A lot of big guys didn’t have that speed but I had the speed to keep up with these guys. It would be fun simply because, you know, they’re just so fast and I would have enjoyed that, definitely.

SLAM: That 1996 Sonics team was probably the best non-Bulls team of that Jordan era. Do you ever wish that team came around five years earlier or five years later so you wouldn’t have to run into the greatest team of all time?

SK: No I mean, it’s cool. You never want to lose or come in second to someone, but if you’re going to get beat you really want to get beat by the best. I think not only was Michael Jordan one of the best players in the NBA, but also, like you just said, that team from Chicago, they were one of the best teams in the history of the NBA. If you’re going to lose to somebody, that’s who you want to lose to.

SLAM: The game has changed a lot in terms of player movement. What do you think of the way free agency is basically being held up by three players? (This interview was conducted two days before LeBron James announced his decision to join the Cavaliers—Ed.)

SK: These guys should always protect themselves, and they have that right. The one thing that sometimes we don’t do as players, we always give up our rights and have ownership control those rights. I think a lot of these guys are doing good. It’s kind of funny how some of the best players we have in the game today, we’re not sure where they’re going to end up. I think everything will change and smooth out and this will be something that’ll be all over real quickly. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing where these guys are going to sign. I actually think (LeBron’s) going back to Cleveland.

Back in ’94, Shawn Kemp was the shit. And so was his signature sneaker, the Reebok Kamikaze I. It’s back in limited quantities in Black/White/Blue on March 28, for $115 at Foot Locker, Champs, Finish Line, Jimmy Jazz, Shiekh, DTLR, Eastbay and Reebok.com for $115. Check out some photos above.

Shawn Kemp has a question. The six-time NBA All-Star is standing in downtown New York City sneaker paradise Flight Club on an August afternoon, holding a single “Remember the Alamo” Reebok Kamikaze II, and wondering, just as any other curious customer might, if the store has any pairs available in his size. To those familiar with all of the proper nouns in the previous two sentences, this should sound pretty absurd—the Kamikazes were (well, “are,” considering they’ve been re-released this year) Kemp’s signature shoe, so one would think Reebok would hook him up with as many pairs, in as many sizes, as he’d like.

One would be right, for the most part. But for some reason or another the company hasn’t had many that fit his large feet—especially of this new release—so if Kemp wants himself a fresh pair of exclusive kicks, he’s going to have to go about it the civilian way. Unfortunately, a kid wearing a Flight Club polo has bad news: There are none. “Mr. Kamikaze himself can’t even get a pair of Kamikazes,” he mutters after Kemp drifts away.

Then, a miracle: Like a chef deciding that, Fine, his restaurant can produce a dish that isn’t on the menu, someone on the Flight Club staff realizes a pair of “Remember the Alamo” Kamikazes does exist in the needed size, and that Kemp can go ahead and buy it for the expectedly inflated price of $408. Huzzah!

The whole scene is weird. Some people around the store stop and request photos with Kemp. Others completely ignore him, having seemingly no idea that standing alongside them is a former NBA superstar whose signature sneaker is available on the massive wall of sneaks in front of them. A couple staff members heed his every wish, scrambling like maniacs for the pair he’d like. Others act as if he’s just a normal customer, or worse, a normal customer with an annoying request.

It’s a juxtaposition Kemp may be familiar with. After dominating the 90s with the Seattle Supersonics, utilizing his high-flying game to become a local hero in The Emerald City and, for that matter, to 90s kids worldwide, he experienced a few less-successful stints in Cleveland, Portland and Orlando that left plenty of fans upset with what he did (or didn’t) offer their favorite teams. And now, a decade after his final NBA game, it’s as if we don’t know how to define Kemp’s legacy. Is he a legend who captivated a wide audience of basketball-lovers for close to a decade? Or an unfortunate but all too common case of talent that never lived up to what could’ve/should’ve been?

Earlier that afternoon, Kemp, now 43, sits in a burger joint in midtown Manhattan reminiscing about all of it. The 6-10 former power forward grew up in of Elkhart, IN, a city in northern Indiana with a basketball obsession that borders on fanatical. He was raised by a single, hard-working mother, and as he grew older, it became obvious that hoops would dominate his future. One day when Shawn was in 9th grade, a center from the Indiana Pacers visited the school and played Shawn one-on-one. The contest ended when the young Kemp dunked right over the Pacer, a 7-footer whose name Kemp politely declined to offer up.

(But here’s a guess: Stuart Gray, a center on the ’84-85 Pacers who told us he absolutely did visit schools in the Elkhart area in the mid-80s. “It may have been me,” Gray told us. “It’s stretching my memory, but I do remember events we used to have up in Elkhart. Put it this way: It sounds credible.”)

Word of Kemp’s talent spread quickly. Fans would line up for hours to get a good seat to watch him play at Elkhart’s Concord High School; during games and practices, he would slam the ball down so hard his hands would bruise up. One of his cousins has said Kemp once dunked so hard sparks flew off a chain-link net.

For years Bobby Knight tried to convince Kemp to sign with Indiana University, a recruiting attempt that turned political as Kemp’s high school career wound down. He was the favorite for the coveted Indiana Mr. Basketball award at the time, and one day he received a letter saying a decision to attend IU will help him earn the accolade. The message was clear: Commit elsewhere and kiss the trophy goodbye. “The memo was sent!” Kemp laughs now. Not long after he signed with out-of-state University of Kentucky, Woody Austin was named Mr. Basketball.

The senselessness didn’t stop there. Because of a failure to earn a specific score on the S.A.T. test, Shawn was labeled a Proposition 48, meaning he’d have to sit out a year at UK before he was eligible to take the court. During his senior season at Concord, opposing fans would chant “S-A-T! S-A-T!” Concord fans would respond with “N-B-A! N-B-A!”. A few years earlier, after he sank a jumper that buried rival Elkhart Central during the Indiana state tournament, angry fans lobbed banana peels at him.

Things should’ve been better in Kentucky. He was nicknamed “Beast” during his first few months there, a name that described his viscous mentality on the court. But any positive momentum came to a halt in October of Kemp’s freshman year, when Lexington police announced he had attempted to sell two chains—stolen from his teammate Sean Sutton, the son of then-UK Head Coach Eddie Sutton—to a local pawn shop.

“I didn’t steal the chain,” Kemp says. “What I was guilty of was pawning the chain, and I had done it for a friend on the team, but he was currently playing. I’m the one who went and pawned it. I didn’t know the chain was stolen, though. I explained it to the university, and to the authorities, and they checked it out. I couldn’t tell on the player. I couldn’t say, ‘This is where it came from.’ So I just took [the blame].”

Kemp transferred to Trinity Valley Community College in quiet Athens, TX, where, still ineligible to play, he practiced with the team every day, slowly rebuilding his passion for basketball. “He led our big guy workouts in practice,” says Guy Furr, an assistant at Trinity Valley. “He raised everybody’s game to a different level.”

A group of TVCC players would train each night from midnight to 2 a.m., and while driving home from one session, the group heard a commercial on the radio advertising a Dallas Mavericks-hosted dunk contest, with the grand prize being the right to practice with the Mavs three times. The guys made the 40-minute drive to Dallas, and Kemp, after easily winning the contest, was invited to train with a squad that included his future teammates Detlef Schrempf and Sam Perkins. He dominated the first practice to such a level that the Mavs’ coaches decided the first was his last. “They let me practice the Friday, and they were like, Yeah, you can’t come back here,” Kemp says. “I’ll never forget this: A reporter in Dallas told me, If you don’t get your ass in the pros tomorrow, something’s wrong. He said, Man, you’re the best player on the team out there.”

Kemp declared for the 1989 NBA Draft that February, never officially suiting up for TVCC. In Madison Square Garden on Draft night, Seattle fans rained boos down from the rafters after the Sonics selected Kemp with the 17th pick; many of those boos turned to cheers after Kemp’s high school highlights were displayed on the Jumbotron.

His NBA career started slow—he played sparingly during his rookie year under Head Coach Bernie Bickerstaff, then never settled into a groove under KC Jones, who coached Seattle during Kemp’s second season in the NBA, his first playing alongside a point guard named Gary Payton. Before the ’90 Draft, Kemp had lobbied for the Sonics to select GP. “I saw Gary Payton on the front page of Sports Illustrated,” Kemp says, “and I told the organization we had to have him. I saw him play against UCLA and score like 47, and he talked to the whole game. He talked so much shit, man, I couldn’t believe what I was watching.”

In the middle of ’90-91, Sonics management replaced Jones—who preferred to allot heavy minutes to veterans over youngsters—with George Karl, who turned Kemp and Payton loose. “Once George Karl and (assistant) Tim Ggurgich got there, me and Shawn started saying, let’s start having highlight films,” Payton says. “Let’s start doing things that we wanted to do.”

And what they wanted to do, and what they did, was nothing short of incredible. The Reign Man—a nickname for Kemp made famous by broadcaster Kevin Calabro, who originally spotted the name splashed on a poster—and The Glove were Lob City before Lob City, invigorating Seattle with an uptempo style rooted in tough, in-your-face defense. “We needed a system where we could run and do what we wanna do,” Payton says. “George came in and right away said, Look, they want to trade you guys. We’re gonna see what happens after a year, but you guys are gonna have to go out and work.”

Ggurgich made it his mission to get Kemp playing like he was back in Elkhart, and to get Payton, who had stammered out of the gate under KC Jones, to rediscover his Oakland-bred attitude. It worked. Defensive stops often ended in swipes from Payton or swats from Kemp. “Shawn was a tremendous weak-side shotblocker,” Calabro says. “He’d come out of nowhere and swat shots, and actually keep shots in play. He’d grab balls out of the air. The guy was amazing. He was a bona-fide stretch 4-5.”

Fast breaks, meanwhile, concluded with powerful alley-oops. Once during that breakout ’92-93 year, Payton rocketed a pass off the backboard to Kemp, who rose for the alley-oop and threw the ball down without control, slamming it off the rim and back into play. Karl, furious, benched Kemp and Payton immediately. “I looked at Shawn, and he looked at me, and I said, If we get another chance, we’re gonna do it again,” Payton says. Later in the game, same situation: Payton threw the same pass, and Kemp rose for the same dunk, this time sending it through the net successfully. The ecstatic pair ran over to Karl and smiled as they gave him high-fives. “That’s how much confidence he had in us to let us do whatever we wanted,” Payton says.

Kemp, Payton and a group that included guys like Schrempf, Perkins and Nate McMillan thrived in Seattle, reaching the postseason on an annual basis from ’90-91 to ’97-98. During Karl’s tenure, the first full season of which was ’92-93, the team never won less than 55 games. “George never had to teach effort or get us motivated,” Schrempf says. “We wanted to go out there and beat people down. We knew sometimes going into the game that teams were scared to play us because of the way we were playing.”

That squad’s pinnacle came in 1996, when it fished the regular season a miraculous 64-18, only to fall prey to Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls in the Finals. Following a tough run through the West, “we were just not mentally ready to play the Finals,” Schrempf says.

In 1996, the Sonics signed center Jim McIlvaine to a seven-year, $35 million deal. It was the first of a few curious decisions by SuperSonics management during the late 90s, and also the one that likely led to Kemp’s exit from Seattle—with too much money on the books, the organization didn’t have enough to pay Kemp what he felt he was deserved. He was traded to Cleveland in ’97, where he’d later receive a seven-year deal worth around $107 million.

Though Kemp’s career arc is often generalized as one part good (Seattle) and one part bad (everything post-Seattle), that doesn’t really do his time in Cleveland justice. Kemp excelled early on in Ohio, averaging a solid 18.0 points per game and 9.3 game, even with a style of play that was clearly evolving from above to beneath the rim. He famously returned from the ’98 lockout overweight—the Cavs listed him at 280 pounds, up 34 from the year previous, though some have speculated he was actually up above 300—but his numbers remained steady, with a career-high 20.5 ppg and a career-high 23.5 PER in ’98-99. “The lockout ended, I had gained a little weight,” Kemp says. “I didn’t think [the lockout] was gonna end. I thought we were gonna be on strike for the whole season. I was weary of [working out] because I didn’t wanna get hurt.”

The Cavs inevitably realized that what they invested in—a high-flying, all-energy-everything superstar—was not what they had received. Kemp was traded to Portland on August 31, 2000.

Any excitement for a fresh opportunity in PDX evaporated about 24 hours later, when the team announced that it had also traded for the 6-11 Dale Davis in a separate deal. “I was doing my press conference in Portland, and they were doing some more trading to bring some more players in,” Kemp says. “You realize that you’ve become a bit more of a number than you had realized.”

Kemp was occasionally a helpful reserve in Portland; other times, he was simply too out of shape to contribute much at all. He left the team before the end of the ‘00-01 season to reportedly check himself into drug treatment. “I had some issues to deal with,” he says. “Mine didn’t come from addiction, it came from lifestyle choices. With the drugs and alcohol, it didn’t take me long to clean up certain things. I’ve always had certain things to deal with. Once you start doing something everyday at this level, when you take it down a notch, it’s not the same.

“It takes a toll on you, psychologically,” he continues. “As a professional athlete, one thing you don’t have is time. The only thing I would say to a professional athlete, if they go through anything as far as drugs and alcohol or anything like that, is to take a small break, take a step back from the game, and really look at the big picture. See where you started and where you wanna end, then you can figure it out. If you don’t take a break and look at it, you’re probably not gonna figure it out.”

Kemp never took a break. He returned for ’01-02, during which he put up similar numbers to the year before: around 6 points and 4 rebounds per 15 minutes a game, all way down from his averages of around 20 and 10 in Seattle and Cleveland. To the surprise of many, he elected to forfeit about $25 million to be let go from his contract following the 2002 season. He then signed with Orlando, where he started 55 games as a veteran on the Tracy McGrady-led Magic, averaging 6.8 ppg and 5.7 rpg.

And that was it. A few failed comeback attempts followed, the most serious of which came in 2005, when multiple outlets reported that Kemp appeared to be in very good shape, but a knee injury put an end his career before one last comeback materialized. He finished with 14 years under his belt, career averages of 14.6 ppg and 8.4 rpg, 15,347 points and 5,808 boards in total. “The only regret that I have is that I would’ve stretched it out and let people see my talent a little longer,” Kemp says. “But outside of that, I don’t have any regrets.”

How you view Shawn Kemp’s career likely depends on context. If you pulled for the Trail Blazers or Magic in the early 00s, you may not think much of the guy, having witnessed him struggle both on and off the court during years he could’ve spent solidifying a spot in the Basketball Hall of Fame. If you were a Seattle fan—or just a neutral NBA fan in general—during the 90s, you had to have loved watching this dude play. “There was nothing I couldn’t do on the basketball court,” Kemp laughs.

These days he resides in Seattle and co-owns Oskar’s Kitchen, a restaurant a few blocks from KeyArena, the building he and the Sonics once packed on a nightly basis. He lives with his wife and three of his 10 children—the youngest of the 10 is in eighth grade, the oldest a junior in college. “I don’t want my kids to grow up and think anything negative of their dad,” he says. “Only thing I want them to think of are personal experiences with me.”

He also maintains a relationship with Reebok—who’s been and will continue to re-release his signature kicks to ever-hungry sneaker enthusiasts—and if the SuperSonics some day make a return to Seattle, Kemp says he’d love to work with the organization, preferably in a role where he could advise younger players on the importance of saving their money. “That would mean more to me than coaching,” he says.

Which is all to say that, despite more than a handful of ups and downs over the years, Kemp has seemingly found peace, using his time to fulfill fatherhood responsibilities, oversee Oskar’s, participate in community relations events throughout the Seattle area and pursue the business opportunities afforded a retired NBA star. “I think what I’ve done will always be remembered,” Kemp says toward the end of our conversation. “But as an individual, I just want people to realize that a person can go through certain things. It’s about what you learn.

“Normally guys who go through as much as I did probably don’t have a good ending. But I’ve been able to switch things around into a more positive direction. That’s simply from being a good person, man. When you know you’re a good person, you live a good lifestyle.”

It’s a tough question: How do you take something that’s great, something that a lot of people care about, something that isn’t necessarily yours, and make it…even better?

This was the dilemma Jon Morris faced in late-1994, when he was tasked with designing the Reebok Kamikaze II, the second sneaker in then-Seattle SuperSonics star Shawn Kemp’s signature line that was to be released for the ’95-96 NBA season. “That’s the hardest thing to do as a designer,” Morris says now. “How do you figure out how to update something that’s really different and cool? It was intimidating because I really respected [the Kamikaze I], and I said, How do I do something like that? I don’t wanna mess it up.”

But it’s a mission Morris and the folks at Reebok accomplished, and they did so at such a high level that over the course of 2013, all these years later, Reebok has been re-releasing retro versions of the kicks to the delight of sneakerheads across the world.

“The [Kamikaze I] had these interlocking triangular shapes,” Morris says, “so the direction was like, ‘You need to take it to the next level.’” His bosses told him they wanted a sneaker with a design that connected the kicks’ upper with its midsole, so Morris put together a couple of rough sketches, laying out the now-iconic zig-zag arrangement. And that was it all it took; the Reebok overlords were almost entirely content with Morris’ original ideas immediately. “That usually doesn’t happen,” he laughs.

The seemingly lightning bolt-influenced look is a standout amidst a group of edgy, bold sneakers released by Reebok in the mid-’90s. At the time, this was the brand’s M.O., to turn heads with kicks that could be loved or hated, but couldn’t be ignored. “A lot of the players, they would tease me, because the shoes were loud,” Kemp told us. “I was fine with that. The shoes were loud, and at that particular time I had a very loud game.”

“If it doesn’t create a passionate response—if somebody says, ‘Oh, it’s nice, but it’s forgettable’—you haven’t really done your job as a designer,” Morris adds. Oddly enough, Morris had entered the basketball realm only shortly before working on the Kamikaze II; previously, he had sketched out a heavily cushioned shoe that then-CEO Paul Fireman unexpectedly decided to use for Shaq—it became the Shaqnosis—after which Morris offered to lend his services to other hoops products. Beyond the Shaqnosis and Kamikaze IIs, Morris worked mostly on tennis and outdoor sneakers.

Kemp had worn Nikes early in his career, but after about a half-decade with the Swoosh he signed with Reebok, initially attracted to the Canton, MA-based company’s Above The Rim campaign. (To say Kemp spent the mid-’90s playing “above the rim” would be an understatement for the ages.) He wore Reebok Pumps and Above The Rims, then was gifted his first sig, the Kamikaze I in ’94. The 6-10 power forward didn’t accept the original iteration of the Kamikaze I—too basic, he said—so he sent the designers back to the drawing board, and they returned with a brash sneaker that perfectly matched Kemp’s bombastic style of play.

“I thought [my Reebok deal] fit like a hand in a glove, a perfect situation for myself, just because of my game and what I was doing on the basketball court at the time,” Kemp says. “And then Reebok did the greatest thing in the world for me, which was to lower the price. That was the one thing I asked when I got involved with them—just to keep an eye on the price and they’ve done that. They’ve done pretty much what I’ve asked them to do.”

Kemp wore the Kamikaze IIs during ’95-96, when the high-flyer averaged 19.6 points, a career-high 11.4 rebounds and countless in-your-face highlights per game. He notoriously sported a white/navy colorway of the kicks at the ’96 All-Star Game in San Antonio, a tilt he started and in which he dropped 13 points, grabbed 4 boards and threw down a few sick dunks. Photos of said throw-downs will dominate Google Image searches forever.

The Kamikaze IIs were initially reissued in a white/black/green colorway this past January—retailing for $100, a price that pleases Kemp—and a variety of releases (ranging from those you can cop at your local Foot Locker to some uber-exclusive drops that might require waiting on a block-long line or a hook up from a solid connect) have trickled out over the past few months. And if you’ve been paying attention to the feet of a select few NBA players, you’ve probably noticed they’ve been making their way into the League, too.

Newly made Brooklyn Net Jason Terry, Kings point guard Isaiah Thomas and now-Suns swingman Gerald Green all donned them on NBA floors during ’12-13, with Thomas rocking his during the Rising Stars Challenge and Green slipping his on for the Dunk Contest. “They feel really good on the feet,” Green told us at a Reebok photo shoot during All-Star Weekend this past February. “I would say that these are the most comfortable shoes from Reebok that I’ve worn—and I’ve worn the Pumps, the Questions, [and] the S. Dots back in the day when Jay-Z had them. And I’ve always worn the Reebok Classics. But these right here for basketball apparel, they’re comfortable and they’re light.”

That’s not a coincidence, either. “The difference between the [re-released version] and the ones I wore is the new shoes are a little lighter,” Kemp explains. “That’s the biggest adjustment with any shoes that are made now [in comparison with sneakers from] the ’90s. Reebok’s done a great job making that transformation. It’s a little lighter, and I think that’s why some of the guys are still willing to play basketball in them.”

Thomas, for one, says he can’t get enough of them. “They’re probably my most comfortable basketball shoes,” he says. “People always say to me, ‘Where’d you get those? Can I get a pair?’ I can wear them when I work out, then put on another pair and wear them with jeans later in the day.”

The 5-9 PG was raised in Washington, worshipping the likes of Kemp and Gary Payton. “They were the guys you wanted to be—the Reign Man and the Glove,” says Thomas, who is spending this summer working on his game back home. “If you were playing basketball, at least somebody was wearing them, because everybody wanted to be Shawn Kemp. I didn’t have a pair of Kamikazes, but I wanted them. Back then I wished I got a pair.”

Luckily enough for IT, he would wind up becoming an actual, real-life friend of Kemp’s. As the story goes, the SuperSonics legend was in the building during a game in Seattle not long after Thomas, then just a high school player who was known to blow past a defender or three, had a few consecutive high-scoring games and began making some serious noise. Someone passed word to Kemp that he’s gotta meet the kid from Tacoma, WA, who was thoroughly tearing up any and all competition, so Kemp went and introduced himself.

Naturally, the then-teenage Thomas was floored: “It was surreal,” he says. “[Kemp] knew of me and I knew of him, but I wanted to meet him way more than he wanted to meet me. But he knew who I was—that was crazy. It hasn’t hit me yet that I’m really a friend of Shawn Kemp’s.”

The connection has made Thomas a logical Reebok endorsee. The Kamikaze IIs, though, have caught fire to the degree that they’re being repped by some celebs who aren’t aligned with any specific brand. The sleds have already been spotted on the likes of Jay-Z, Rihanna, Fabolous and DJ Khaled, and every day it seems a different celebrity pops up on a sneaker site with their feet harnessing the iconic zig-zags.

There should be plenty more of that still to come, too, given the planned upcoming releases. A “Sonics” colorway drops on August 16; a colorway titled “Letter of Intent” will drop on August 30; and a colorway titled “Nocturnal” will drop on November 26. They’ll all maintain the $100 price point.

“I’m pretty proud of that shoe because it still holds up, design-wise,” Morris says. “It’s definitely iconic, and it’s a good representation of what Reebok was. We had really aggressive shoes. Reebok was on fire—it was very bold, fresh, definitely different. It just worked, you know?”

And Shawn Kemp, as you would imagine, is pretty damn proud as well. In fact, Kemp tells us that these days, when he laces ’em up—which, believe it or not, he does often; as we spoke with him he was in the midst of training (!) in preparation for a basketball tournament he’d be hosting and playing in the following weekend—he solely rocks Reeboks, usually going with one of his signature joints. “I don’t go out on the court without playing in Reeboks these days—I will not do it. I was going to the airport the other day, and I went out of my way to go over and say something to this guy because he had the shoes on,” Kemp says with a hearty chuckle. “He couldn’t believe it was me—he was like, ‘Oh, my!’ It’s definitely a good feeling. I go out of my way just to tell people thanks for wearing the shoe.”

]]>http://www.slamonline.com/kicks/shawn-kemp-reebok-kamikaze-ii/feed/6SLAMonlineShawn Kemp Believes Seattle Will Receive an NBA Team in Two to Three Yearshttp://www.slamonline.com/nba/shawn-kemp-believes-seattle-will-receive-an-nba-team-in-two-to-three-years/
http://www.slamonline.com/nba/shawn-kemp-believes-seattle-will-receive-an-nba-team-in-two-to-three-years/#commentsWed, 24 Jul 2013 15:09:00 +0000http://www.slamonline.com/online/?p=280609

Of all the people truly hoping the League would vote to send an NBA franchise to Seattle this past spring, few were as deeply invested—in all senses of the word—as Shawn Kemp. Of course, the big man is a SuperSonics legend who’d naturally like his personal basketball history to live on and be celebrated with an active squad. But Kemp also owns bar/restaurant Oskar’s Kitchen, a small neighborhood joint located just a few blocks from Key Arena, where the Sonics played through the majority of the ’90s and were set to spend a couple of seasons before their new home was to be built in downtown Seattle. Business would’ve benefitted, to say the least.

And yet, despite the failed attempt, Kemp hasn’t given up hope. We spoke with the six-time All-Star, who averaged 14.6 points and 8.4 rebounds per game over the course of his 14-season career, for a feature in the upcoming issue of KICKS—which we’ll be able to tell you all about shortly—and he made clear he believes the city will be given a franchise soon enough. “I’m not going anywhere,” Kemp said. “We got a little bit of a delay with the votes that came back from the NBA, and we understood why. We understood Mr. Stern is going out of the office and he didn’t want to take the chance with anything negative happening with another NBA team, but we’re pretty confident here in Seattle that within the next two to three years we’re gonna have some basketball back this way.”

As far as Oskar’s goes, Kemp sounds confident it’ll persevere: “[The restaurant is] gonna survive,” he said. “I work with a good, talented group of people. The restaurant is gonna be in good shape. We still get a lot of people there on a daily basis. It takes a little more work, just to be creative [to bring patrons in], but I think the restaurant will be fine. I think the restaurant will stay strong and we’ll keep doing positive things with it.”

Shawn Kemp’s vicious reverse jam over Dennis Rodman in Game 4 of the ’96 NBA Finals may not have been enough to lead the Sonics past the Bulls for their first Championship since ’79, but it was clearly the play of the series. Of the entire postseason, for that matter. That’s right—no MJ switching hands in mid-flight or Paxson triple-killers for the Bulls this year.

Seattle didn’t have enough in the tank to push the 72-game winning Bulls to four straight losses—which woulda been the biggest upset ever—but aside from MJ cryin’ on the floor, this is what people are gonna remember:

After two tight losses and one downright embarrassing one, the Sonics woke up. They spent the first half of Game 4 putting the Bulls on the ropes, then Kemp came out strong in the third quarter to deliver the knockout punch.

With Mike, Pip, Kukoc and Randy Brown lingering on the perimeter, No. 40 pounds the ball into the hardwood on the left wing, over and over as he backs the Worm into the paint. Then it happens. Bam! Kemp spins toward the right baseline. Switches the rock to the left hand as Rodman squirms to recover. Driving underneath the tin, he lunges out and up; with the ball at chest level, he whips it back over his head with both hands—boom!—and the Rain starts to fall.

But Kemp isn’t done. After pulling himself up into the twine, Kemp comes down on the Lite-Brite head and Etch-a-Sketch shoulders of the Worm. He glares down from his perch, as if to say, “This series ain’t over yet,” while Rodman raises his hands in his best “Hey-ref-isn’t-it-time-you-called-a-technical?” manner.

The dunk, Kemp’s first of three in the quarter, gave the Sonics their largest lead of the game. It even earned him a pat on the back from Rodman.

The Sonics went on to extend the series to six games, before finally succumbing at the United Center. The Sonics fell short—Kemp grew up.

Real pressure, the kind that great teams thrive on, usually comes with winning the deciding game in a championship series. But for the Seattle SuperSonics, the tension this past playoff season was to win a first round series.

The new jack Lakers, a team everybody was looking at, were the Sonics’ first round foe this time around and, although old schoolers like Kareem, Magic and Worthy were busy rockin’ chairs instead of rims, the Lakers’ new kids—Van Exel, Jones and Ceballos—were putting more than enough stress on the Sonics.

The Lakers had managed to split the two games played up in Seattle. Players were amped for Game 3, which was at the Lakers’ house, and, well, it was like the good old days.

With just under a minute left in the third quarter, and the Lakers up by 11, the Sonics needed a wake-up call like it was nobody’s business.

Leave it to motor mouth Gary Payton, who drove the ball down the lane and into the heart of the Laker D. Seeing nothing but gold gear between himself and the tin, Payton kicked it out to Vincent Askew at the top of the key. Knowing his J was about as weak as Shawn Bradley’s game, Askew quickly swung the ball over to team captain Nate McMillan on the left side who heaved a three-pointer that looked like a brick in transit.

With the Laker D scrambling, the always-dangerous Shawn Kemp found himself chillin’ over in the right corner, waiting. Alone. Big oops. McMillan’s shot hit off the rim and bounced to the left, about five feet off the rim. As the Lakers’ George Lynch waited for the rebound, Kemp came into the picture. Super Shawn rose, danced in the air, grabbed the pill with his right hand, arm fully extended behind him, and in one motion threw down a windmill jam HARD as Van Exel and Lynch’s jaws dropped.

But it wasn’t enough. He got a 10 on style but it still only registered a two on the scoreboard. The Sonics lost that game 105-101 and never made it back to Seattle, losing the next game by four points again.

This past Saturday in the Toyota Center, immediately before an entertaining night of dribbling, shooting and dunking, NBA commissioner David Stern addressed reporters and spoke on a variety of pressing news items, with an important one standing well above the rest: the issue of whether the Sacramento Kings will soon be moving north to Seattle. As the press conference took place, a man both emotionally and financially invested in the matter sat with a reporter at a restaurant just a short walk from the downtown Houston arena and talked about, well, a lot—highlights of his playing career, his current business endeavors, the re-release of his signature kicks and plenty more.

Nowadays, Shawn Kemp resides in Seattle and runs a restaurant situated a few blocks away from Key Arena, a building fans once packed to watch the high-flying Kemp and his SuperSonics take on the likes of Jordan’s Bulls, Stockton/Malone’s Jazz, Ewing’s Knicks, Barkley’s Suns and a host of other popular squads during the early-to-mid 90s. With the Reebok Kamikaze II Mids—the sneaker Kemp wore during the ’96 All-Star Game—in stores once again, the 6-10 former power forward sipped a frozen strawberry margarita and expounded on both the past and the present.

(Also: On Page 2, check out a Q+A with Pacers swingman Gerald Green, who slipped on the Kamikazes for the 2013 Dunk Contest, and on Page 3 read our interview with Kings guard Isaiah Thomas, who rocked those same sneaks during the 2013 Rising Stars Challenge.)

SLAM: So let’s start with the Kamikaze II re-release.

Shawn Kemp: Yeah. It’s been good for me. I think it’s good for Reebok. The relationship has always been good. Good people to work with. Good athletes to work with from the start. We started off in the 90s doing the Above the Rim campaign, so ever since then it’s been great quality. We’ve been working with a lot of guys, from Dennis Rodman to Dominique Wilkins to Shaq. The relationship has been good.

SLAM: How’d you initially wind up with Reebok?

SK: Initially I came into the League wearing Nikes, and you find out very quickly…I always wanted to appeal to the streets, appeal to younger people. So that was really my reason to go from Nike to Reebok. Reebok kind of gave me the edge a little bit with having street credibility. That means a lot. I’m from the streets, so you want that. You want that relationship with younger people.

SLAM: Was the Kamikaze your first Reebok sneaker?

SK: Nah, I came into Reebok doing the Above the Rim campaign, so I did a lot of Above the Rim stuff. The Kamikaze 1 was my first [signature] shoe with Reebok. It’s funny—I just got done playing a basketball game and I actually wore the Kamikaze 1s today. It’s different.

SLAM: It’s cool that you still wear them.

SK: Yeah, you gotta. Who you are is who you are. So you want to stick with it and make it grow.

SLAM: When you were little were you a big sneakerhead?

SK: Absolutely, I was definitely a shoe kid. We looked at it in a different fashion back then—we didn’t look at it like it was just… now shoes are so much money. They cost more. Guys are making $300 pairs of shoes, which is OK, but everyone can’t afford $300 pairs of shoes. The one good thing about working with Reebok back in the day—my shoe now is 100 bucks. One good thing is we had one of the lowest [priced] signature shoes at the time, during my playing career. That’s what made me smile. I was able to talk to kids and let them know I wasn’t in it for financial reasons—I was in it for quality.

SLAM: Did you have a say in the Kamikaze’s design?

SK: Absolutely. The way that we did it is I had sign of approval, but I had such a good relationship with Reebok, they always showed me the designs early on. We agreed to everything step by step. That’s why it worked so well back then, and it still works together now, because we put time in it. I didn’t accept the first shoe, and they went back and really got creative with it.

SLAM: What was wrong with the first one?

SK: The first design wasn’t as crazy and didn’t have as many designs, and—

SLAM: You wanted to stand out.

SK: Exactly. I really did, man. So I told them to go back because the shoe was too basic [laughs]. I told Reebok the shoe was way too basic, and they came back and they showed me the Kamikaze 1 less than a month later, and I was like, [points] that’s the one right there.

SLAM: What was the reaction like when you first wore it?

SK: My teammates were like, “Are you serious? They already know who you are, but are you seriously going to wear those?” But they grew on them. After I played one game in it, they were loving it. They were asking for a pair.

SLAM: It looks like a shoe designed specifically for a big dunker.

SK: It does, but I think that with the style of basketball that I play, where I was all over the court, it fit my style very well. Just to be different out there. And I think as a player in a team sport, you look to be creative, and you look to be different. The way you feel is how you play. If you feel good and you’re shoes are good, I think it helps your game.

SLAM: Before I came here I went on YouTube and watched the Top 10 Shawn Kemp Dunks of All-Time. You have a favorite?

SK: No, I don’t have a favorite, but I wanna tell you this, man: I enjoyed it. I really did. And I don’t mean this in any bad way possible, but I just enjoy dunking on big guys. So anybody that was my size or taller than me—especially guys that were much taller than me—I started melting at the mouth when I saw them. If I could see somebody was bigger than me, it was just like… it was personal. I had to do it [laughs].

SK: It’s always during the game, during the course of the game. But I will admit to this, man: there were a few games when I did some signature dunks, when before the game I knew I was gonna do them. One would be the Lister Blister. [Points with his index fingers.] Yeah, with the fingers.

SLAM: You knew you were gonna do the pointing?

SK: Well they were trying to be really physical in that game with me, like throwing me on the ground. They didn’t want me to get any dunks or anything, trying to frustrate me. So one of the things you do when they start to frustrate you is you attack them and do something different. It kind of shocks them. The first one was the Rattling Gatling.

SLAM: I actually saw Chris Gatling at a party the other night. I was going to tell him that I’d be interviewing you today and see if he wanted to comment on that dunk, but thought better of it.

SK: [Laughs] Yeah, the Rattling Gatling, that was the one that opened it up. And then that’s when I was able to do the Lister Blister.

SLAM: To this day I can’t think of one other instance where a guy slapped hands with a dude who just dunked on him.

SK: Well you’d probably be suspended these days if you try it.

SLAM: It is easier to get suspended now, but still, that was a sign of sportsmanship.

SK: It is. I always wanted to [dunk on people] in such a way where I made my statement, but didn’t cross the line of embarrassing a guy or disrespecting him. I wanted to do it during the course of the game, and make it friendly, but necessary.

SLAM: Well, you got pretty close to that line with the Lister Blister.

SK: Yeah. All those guys—any of the guys that were on All-Star, I would just choose them.

SLAM: Has anyone you dunked on ever held a grudge? I imagine Alton Lister would…

SK: His wife didn’t like when I did it. She told me afterward she didn’t appreciate it.

SLAM: What did she say?

SK: “It was a contract year for him. This was the Playoffs. He played in Seattle with you guys a year ago. Why would you do that to him in a contract year?!” But hey, man, it’s all for the love of the game. But I don’t hold any grudges with any players, and I don’t think any players [do with me]. Like I said, I always tried to do in such a fashion that I didn’t disrespect them. It was all for fun. The things I did were definitely for fun. I only pointed at Lister. But with some of the other guys I did some things—it was all for fun.

SLAM: Any other favorite dunks?

SK: Yeah, I mean…the Michael Jordan one, I love that one. Oh my God, with the tongue sticking out right above his head? That’s forever. So that was great. The first year I got with Reebok it went so well, the second year that I came back with Reebok, they just asked me to dunk on everyone.

SLAM: They asked you to?

SK: Yeah, they were like, “Look, don’t even pick out teams, just go ahead and dunk on everybody.”

SLAM: That’s a tough request.

SK: Yeah, but it went well. I was very fortunate just to be able to come out with the energy to do that for so long. That’s what it’s about. You have to push yourself to be creative. I think some guys these days, they don’t put enough of themselves into the game. And also, the biggest difference is this: I played with a smile on my face. The difference with these guys today is they play with a tough, macho face, and it’s tough for the fans to recognize that. So if you’re able to play with a smile on your face, it goes a long way.

SLAM: You were in a couple of Dunk Contests, but never won one.

SK: I never went into the Dunk Contest to win—that was not my goal. It was to make a statement. It was a statement on fashion with the shoes, and it was a statement of who could dunk the ball the hardest. So I knew the little guys were gonna be a little bit more crafty, but I just wanted everyone in the arena to know I could dunk the basketball the hardest. That’s the reason why I went into the Dunk Contest.

SLAM: A lot of people have said Blake Griffin is like the new Shawn Kemp.

SK: Yeah. I’ve watched some of his plays, and it’s definitely—if there’s been any other player since I’ve played, and when I watch him play he definitely reminds me of myself. Not as much power, but definitely has the athleticism [laughs]. Not enough! He’s a little slower, but he’s a great player.

SLAM: Did you ever feel boxed in as a dunker, like people thought you could only dunk and weren’t a good all-around player?

SK: It works for you and it works against you. At first it really did work for me, but what it did do was when I heard those things about just being a dunker, it made me go into the gym. My and my assistant coach Tim Grgurich, sometimes we would stay in the gym just working on my jumpshot, working on my 15-footer. And I think every year you come back in the NBA, you need to bring something different, at least for those first seven-to-eight years. That’s the good thing about having a shoe deal and being with a shoe company that supports you, you have that inner feeling that somebody’s supporting you. It made my game so much easier when I was able to shoot the basketball. Now I just have fun—now it’s just shooting for fun. I don’t do a whole of dunking anymore, but I love to shoot the basketball.

SLAM: You regularly play pick-up at local gyms?

SK: Yeah I play with everyday guys, man. I prefer to play with guys off the street, because that’s kind of where you learn it from.

SLAM: People get surprised to see you?

SK: Yeah. They’re surprised when me and my wife play on the same team. That’s more surprising for them.

SLAM: She can play?

SK: She can play, man! It’s tough to play with her because when we’re losing she makes me put in all the work. She doesn’t mind yelling at me, getting on me [laughs]. She’s like, ‘You better do something!’ I always go into the game and I try to be a team player. And then at the end I’m just like, Man, I’m ready to put some shots down. You gotta make a statement. So at the end I have to let them know that I can really do it, especially if we’re losing. If we’re losing I gotta shoot the ball every time.

SLAM: You must’ve been pretty psyched to hear about the progress made to bring the SuperSonics back.

SK: Yeah man, I’m excited. We’ve been pushing for it.

SLAM: Have you been part of the movement at all?

SK: I have been part of the movement. I own a restaurant right around the corner from where the Sonics used to play at Key Arena, so now they’re gonna get at least two years there, and then they’re gonna move to a different part of town to a new arena. [Potentially, but nothing’s set just yet.—Ed.] It’s gonna be fun. If you look across the NBA, guys like Isaiah Thomas, Avery Bradley, Jamal Crawford, Martell Webster, Spencer Hawes—they might not be All-Stars, but they’re true NBA players. We’ve got a lot of guys from Seattle that truly came up.

SLAM: Why’d you decide to live in Seattle after you retired?

SK: Well my family’s from Seattle, my wife’s from Seattle, and I had bought into a restaurant years ago and I chose to go back to Seattle to run the day-to-day operations on it, to make sure it was successful after the Sonics left. We had to do a whole remodel, a whole change of things. I started doing a lot of radio work. It just kind of fit in with what we were doing. We’ve been working with the community there for so long; we run a college summer league there where college and NBA players can come and play. I always say I’m living a dream, man. I had a chance to do a lot of things when I was young as far as coming into the NBA and working with people there and also with Reebok, and I live my dream now by going out and doing things with the people in [the Seattle] area. It puts a smile on people’s faces, not just mine, so it works both ways.

With the Oklahoma City Thunder’s incredible emergence as one of the NBA’s elite teams, it’s easy to forget how things all began for the franchise. Just a few years ago the team left Seattle, which the team called home since 1967, and moved to OKC. The Sonics had fallen on some hard times, but had incredible success with Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp-led teams in the 90s and into the 21st century. This story was originally written in 1996 for SLAM 13 about that accomplished Sonics squad. —Ed.

by Scoop Jackson

That Bitch Mitch! A Rich-mon. Droppin’ dollars. Thirty seven of ‘em. It never rains in SoCal, ’cause it’s always raining in Seattle. Sometimes it just reigns. On April 28th, when Mitch Richmond drowned Seattle with 37 points and the SacFly Kings won Game Two of the death round in the playoffs, drama set. Mad thick drama.

Gary Payton, with head in full tilt, walked into the locker room and looked at his team, at the situation, at the drama, and said nothing. He just looked. With nothing to say, two years of unfulfilled promise flashed before him. See to Payton this wasn’t new drama. This was some ol’ shit, some real shit, some déjà-vu shit. No more heroes were going to be made at his expense. No longer were the Seattle Supersonics going to be the answer to questions about “ Which team didn’t….” In Gary Payton’s eyes you could see his team’s future. Something had to change.

Down 83-75 on Sacramento’s wood, the Sonics finally realized what the true essence of basketball was all about. They’d been in this position before—on the verge of being eliminated in the first round by no-jacks—but the beauty of the game never hit them. Until now. The essence of being challenged, competition. It’s a beautiful thing. How a team sucks up a gut check and realizes that it is always more important to defeat the challenge than to be defeated. So beautiful.

For the last two playoff seasons, the Sonics played not-to-lose instead of to-win. Two years of sleeplessness. Nightmares like Wes Craven. It wasn’t until 5:49 showed on the clock in Arco Arena in the fourth quarter of Game Three against Sacramento that they realized what was really going on. In one minute they cut an eight point lead to two. Four minutes later, they exhaled. Welcome to the inside of a team of destiny. Once the Seattle Supersonics got past the first round.. déjà vu ended.

“Bump that. Forget those other teams in the past. This here is a different team.” Payton knows. There’ s a new feeling of security, a feeling of truth, a feeling that this time he knows what the hell he’s talking about.

The difference between the ’96 Sonics and the ’93-95 versions is the addition of Sam “Arc-Angel” Perkins and the replacement of Kendall Gill with Hersey Hawkins. Throughout the playoffs Perkins stayed vocal. He and Nate “Mac 10” Mcmillian shared the spotlight in vocabing the team’s leadership, leaving Payton and Shawn Kemp along to handle the weight on the court.

“This team has spirit,” says coach George Karl, who worked the last six weeks of the season with a pink slip as his shadow. “ I like my team. There have been very few games this year that the bunker mentality took over. Where you ask yourself, ‘Are you where you want to be?’ I want to be with these guys. They deserve the acknowledgement of what they have accomplished this year.”

In the process of playing the Bulls in the Finals, the Sonics went through the 36 chambers of Shaolin. Twelve incarcerated sacrifices, shadow boxin with liquid swords, in America. Method Men. They kept it drama filled and never nutted under the pressure. They matured and found definition in who they were as men, as a team, as a Clan.

What was missed in the midst of Chicago’s dominance was the coming of age of an organization once deemed devoid of heart and understanding. Enter the 10 most important post first round victories in the NBA this year. The Sonics zoo—it aint Brooklyn.

Games Two and Four will go down in ball history as classics. In Game Two the Sonics went 20-for 27 from three point range. In a game that switched leads 10 times and was tied 20 times, the Sonics pulled out a 105-101 win and began to notice changes in their game. In Game Four, they watched a 20-point, fourth quarter lead evaporate in 10 minutes, only to win the game in OT. The release of getting past round one made their feet move quicker, made them more confident in holding Hakeem down, made their defense scary.

ESPN began to have field days with Payton’s alternative name, “The Glove.” A crazy little thing called glove. Might as well face it you’re addicted to glove. Stuart Scott was the only one not going out like that. As they advanced to play Utah, it became more noticeab-ill that Payton and Kemp (or at least one of them) deserved to be on Dream Team III.

Behind the scene everything was chill. Spending time with the Sonics during this run made a brotha realize just what George Clinton meant when he sang about getting over the hump: when the syndrome is around don’t let your guard down/all you got to do’s call on the funk. Unguard. Defend yourself.

Hershey Hawkins laughs, looks at me and says “ This is a long way from Westinghouse, huh?”

Up 3-1 in the series they lax and let Utah get a feel for the series. Despite holding John Stockton in check, the Sonics let Karl Malone get all types of disgruntled, let Byron Russell make himself famous and let Jeff Hornacek prove that he is—unquestionably—the baddest white boy in the league.

SUPER BIG GULP. That’s what the headline read in The Seattle Times the day of Game Seven. Drama, part II. Sonics center Ervin Johnson spent the last 10 minutes of practice the day before shooting free throws, screaming “We Believe! You gotta believe!”

The nerves are as undercover as Axel Foley: You see them, hear them, feel them, but no one admits they’re there. As Sam Perkins says, “ This is fun. I think this game is only nerve wracking for the people that watch. For me the nervousness is gone. I think we’re ready.”

As the buzzer sounded, Janet cried and hugged any media person close to her. Every Sonic player, except Payton, ran into the locker room to celebrate. Then all of them went back on the court to celebrate with the people who really made this possible: the fans.

Confetti coming down like rain, the players grabbed wives, kids and parents as they came out of their seats. Sam Perkins being the only member of the team to play in an NBA Finals, took things one step beyond. He adopted 18,000 new family members for a half- hour as he walked around the stadium in the stands and high fived, hugged, kissed anyone who wanted to share the love. Bob Dole should be so diplomatic.

This was a special moment, a very special one. This game was the Sonics’ championship. As Gee Pee screamed one hour later, as we walked arm-around-arm down the corridor of Key Arena (a scream that had Soncs media relations director Cheri White covering Gary’s mouth while video crews completed post- game wrap-ups), “We’re goin’ to the dance!!! Whoooou!”

Cheri: “Gary, please be quiet.”

He took her hand off his mouth. “Hell naw! We goin’ to the daaaannnce!!!” ‘Nuff said.

Sherrell Ford comes to the Crilla (Chicago) and get more love than anybody. Even though he’s not on Seattle’s playoff roster—it’s a rookie thang—he is a West Side native that is glad to be home, still playing basketball in June. The Sonics learn a lot in Games One through Three. They learn that they really didn’t lose game one by seventeen; they shoulda, coulda, woulda won Game Two if it wasn’t for Dennis Rodman, and they got their asses kicked in Game Three.

Earlier in the week Gary Payton found himself on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the words “Mission Impossible” under his chest. Although there were some hectic family matters going on in his life at the time and the magazine wished him luck, Gary knew what was up. So after the 21-point loss in Game Three, Payton walked up to Michael Jordan and straight up asked him, “Dog can I have your shoes?”

Ervin Johnson even went so far as to buy Rodman’s book and send it over to the Bulls locker room to be signed.

Hershey Hawkins grabbed the book and went through the Madonna chapter. “I’m getting a copy,” he said. “He’s my type of player. No X’s and O’s. Get right to the good stuff.

With all the props, respect and admiration being given to the Bulls, the Sonics never once felt defeated. They were beyond that.

“[We] have done a great job of not being concerned with the series, just concerned about the next game,” coach Karl says. “I love my team.”

And love has everything to do with everything when you are down 0-3 to a team everybody is calling the “greatest team ever”. Fear doesn’t set in, no fear does.

As Shawn Kemp, who quietly played himself into all-world status, said before Game Four, “ We’re getting something outta this. A game, two games, three, four. I don’t care. All I know is that I don’t remember who the Bulls beat when they won those other championships. Nobody does. You don’t remember who comes in second. I don’t want to NOT be remembered. You know what I’m say’n’?

Not afraid of getting swept, but more concerned with showing what type of pride they really had, the Sonics simply made the Finals interesting by taking Games Four and Five and busting the bubble of all those who fell for that “greatest ever” noise.

“Hey the league made another 11 million. That’s the way it is.” Dennis Rodman’s words pierced the soul of a game that at some time seems sacred. His comments about the league, the refs and NBC mad sense to everyone except the players in green.

Nobody wanted to give the Sonics credit for doing the impossible in the beating the Bulls two games straight. Making the drama thicker. Everyone was lookin’ at what the Bulls were doing wrong and not what the Sonics started doing right. Even Jordan.

“Are you sure [Payton] was the cause of my frustration?” he spoke. “I had good shots. I don’t think Gary’s defense on me dictated the way I played or the frustrations I had. I just missed some easy shots. [I’ll tell Gary] ‘Bring it on again. ‘ I invite anybody to guard me. But as far as him stopping me, I can only stop myself.”

G. smiled at those words. “If he’s the only one that can stop himself, then we plan on giving him a chance to do it.”

As the Bulls closed out the series in the joy of six, it became evident that the Seattle Supersonics were on to something bigger than what Gus Williams, Freddie Brown, NJ and Jack Sikma were up against back in the day. The elimination of the word “potential” in the description of a once-unsettled team.

In a span of 10 victories, the Sonics went from underachievers to over achievers to believers. They probably gained more by losing in the Finals than any other team in recent basketball history. They learned. Handle the drama, déjà vu. Come together, right now, under Kemp. Destiny awaits. They now know how nice they can be. And often in the heat of competing for rings on the basketball court, that’s all 12 people need to know.

This past Sunday, an aproned Kemp performed a loosely interpreted scene from Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew with Seattle Times columnist Steve Kelley. The Reignman may not have a career as a thespian, but he played the chef’s role well at this Seattle Shakespeare Company’s fundraiser.

]]>http://www.slamonline.com/media/slam-tv/video-shawn-kemp-performing-shakespeare/feed/16SLAMonlineStephon Marbury: Allen Iverson Would Be ‘Rejuvenated’ if He Played in Chinahttp://www.slamonline.com/nba/stephon-marbury-allen-iverson-would-be-rejuvanated-if-he-played-in-china/
http://www.slamonline.com/nba/stephon-marbury-allen-iverson-would-be-rejuvanated-if-he-played-in-china/#commentsFri, 27 Apr 2012 16:52:18 +0000http://www.slamonline.com/online/?p=204104

Allen Iverson is in China for a two-week promotional basketball tour — something billed as the NBA Legends Tour (alongside Iverson will be Dennis Rodman, Clyde Drexler, Shawn Kemp and Stephon Marbury) — but Marbury thinks his former NBA rival would do very well if he stuck around for a while. (After all, Starbury would know.) From Niubball: “Shorty after getting on the ground from the U.S. yesterday morning, he fielded questions from Chinese reporters and when when asked if he’d consider playing in the CBA next season, he replied: ‘Why not?’ Iverson has been out of professional basketball since January 2011, when he left Turkish outfit Besiktas after he injured his right calf muscle. This is not the first time Iverson has been linked with a move to the CBA: He flirted with the idea of playing in China in the summer/fall of 2010 and had several serious offers, including a reported $4 million contract from Foshan. Iverson ended up declining Foshan and all other teams, and signed a two-year deal with Bestikas shortly after in October. At this point, there is no indication as to which teams Iverson would be open towards joining. […] But maybe more importantly, Iverson has a valuable ally in his Chinese corner this time, Stephon Marbury. Fresh off of leading the Beijing Shougang Ducks to their first ever CBA championship, Marbury has grown into a bonefied superstar in China and has been called a hero of Beijing by the city’s millions of inhabitants. Due to a CBA rule that limits both the regular season and Finals MVP award to Chinese players, popular Chinese basketball website, hoopCHINA, has lead a campaign to build Marbury a bronze statue that will commemorate his season in Beijing, a project that has garnered the support of more than 1 million people in China. […] Marbury, who will play against Iverson for the Legends Tour’s first thee games, returned to Beijing yesterday after a short trip to the United States and was immediately supportive of Iverson joining up with a Chinese team next season. ‘I think [Iverson] will be rejuvenated if he played in China,’ Marbury said on his Sina Weibo account (Chinese Twitter). ‘He would love the fans here if he played basketball here. I hope he can feel the love when he plays here in the coming games.'”

George Karl had a front-row seat to the Shawn Kemp air show during their years together in Seattle, and the Denver Nuggets’ head coach sees similar things from Blake Griffin. From the LA Times: “I’ve talked to a couple of guys who’ve said, ‘Was Shawn as powerful?’ said Denver Nuggets Coach George Karl, who coached Kemp in Seattle, before Thursday’s game. ‘I think that’s the guy who’s closest.’ Legend had it that Kemp once dunked so hard that sparks flew off the rim. He later admitted it to be true, adding that the basket had a metal-chain net, which helped the sparks fly. Karl said seeing Griffin’s dunks reminded Karl of his own dunks — in a way. ‘This kid, he gets so high above the rim. It reminds me of when I was an athlete and I could jump and we got the 8-foot hoops,’ Karl said. ‘He does things that we used to do on 8, maybe 7-foot [hoops]. You know, throwing it down from three feet away.'”

Ever since KICKS 3 (summer 2000), each issue of the annual sneaker mag—KICKS 10 not included—has contained two or three new inductions into the KICKS Hall of Fame, where footwear legends past and present are honored. This may not be fresh material for those of you who’ve been copping the mag since before the new millennium hit, but for the younger heads, we’re posting the entire HOF online over the course of the next few weeks. (It’ll be archived under the KICKS tab above.) Enjoy, and don’t forget: KICKS 14 is on sale now! —Ed.

Blake Griffin notwithstanding, fans tend not to get overly excited by big men with disgustingly raw athleticism; you know, the guys who seem hell bent on catching the reverse image of their jersey number in the backboard’s plexiglass before they humiliate the player unfortunate enough to get caught under them. There’s a mid-’90s reason for that seen-it-all-before yawn, and it goes by the name of Shawn “The Reignman” Kemp.

Like the off-kilter fade on the top of his head, for the better part of his 14-year NBA career, Kemp tilted fans’ perspectives on what a 6-10 power forward should and could do on the basketball court. A one-man rendition of 48 minutes of hell, his game was grace, wrapped tightly in a finely tuned frame full of fury. Kemp swallowed up rebounds and swatted shots with flair and oomph. As for his dunks, there may not be enough space here to give them proper credit.

A Shawn Kemp dunk was the stuff that a generation of kids tried to emulate on the Nerf rims that hung on their bedroom doors. It’s what programmers pixalized when they were creating video games like NBA Jam. Kemp dunks were charismatic, game-changing, crowd-swaying, jersey-selling bursts of lightning.

In rainy Seattle, thanks to those aerial assaults and the rest of his game, Kemp found a home. In the League’s first post-Jordan era, Kemp lobbied to be its most entertaining player, crowning countless opponents with vicious dunks of memorable titles (see: “The Lister Blister”).

There were the dunks. And then there were the kicks.

The Kemp-Reebok marriage was one that produced more than just the Kamikaze I and II shoes that were released in 1994 and 1995, respectively. Reebok laced Kemp up with his own signature line, creating three models of The Reignman. Kemp wore the three different sneakers between the ‘97 Playoffs with Seattle and his three-year stay in Cleveland that ended at the turn of the 21st century.

As cool as the signature Reignmans were, Kemp will be best remembered in the Kamikaze. Never have a player’s kicks encapsulated the essence of a man the way that the Kamikaze did Kemp.

Pair Kevin Harlan up with a Reignman YouTube video and the announcer would go hoarse, volleying between praise for Kemp’s disregard for human life and his ability to go up high and down hard. In the seasons that Kemp wore the Kamikazes, he was at his physical peak, springing skyward with his personal safety secondary. He landed on a trio of All-NBA Second-Teams during those years and brought the Sonics to the ‘96 Finals. There, Gary Payton and Kemp took Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls to six games…and that was kind of it.

As full out as the Reignman went on the court, he went just as hard off of it. By the time his final season in Seattle rolled around, he was fighting off rumors about his lifestyle just as hard as he was fighting off double- and triple-teams. Between his time in Cleveland, Portland and Orlando, the All-Star appearances dried up, his weight ballooned and reports of numerous children across the US surfaced. There would be no emergency pull chute here, no miracle recovery for the NBA to see. Kemp left the League after the ’03 season, never again to soar like he did in the ‘90s.

As a shoe, the duo of Kamikazes suited Kemp. The zigzagging patterns screamed to Reebok’s outspoken MO at that point (for further evidence, see Glenn Robinson’s The Rail, or Shaq’s Shaqnosis, both from the same season). Catching flack for grabbing his crotch while celebrating dunks in the 1994 World Championships, Kemp was a little loud himself.

Kemp’s mission in the NBA was simple: take the ball to the hole, and fly through whoever was in his way to do it. He was a force on the court and couldn’t stop himself from being one away from it. Kemp lived Reebok’s ‘90s slogan of “Life is short. Play hard.” a little too literally. It was a short window for Shawn Kemp and his shoes. But what a view we had while they were airborne.

Years later, the scar remains. The Seattle SuperSonics weren’t supposed to lose their franchise, their city. Not with all the great tradition, great players and great fans. Last night, Seattle’s baseball team—the Mariners—honored the history of the SuperSonics and some of its most influential figures before their game against Tampa Bay. Via The Washington Post:“They gathered many of the Sonics’ greatest names, including Hall of Famer Lenny Wilkens, George Karl, Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, Tom Chambers, Hersey Hawkins, Slick Watts, Dale Ellis, Jack Sikma, Spencer Haywood, Fred Brown, Gus Williams, Nate McMillan, Michael Cage and James Donaldson. The Sonics played in Seattle for 41 years before owner Clay Bennett, who purchased the team in 2006, moved them to his hometown of Oklahoma City a year later, leaving the 14th-largest TV market for the 45th. ‘We didn’t deserve to lose a team. We lost a team,’ said former Sonics forward Detlef Schrempf, originally from Germany but who played his high school and college ball in Washington. ‘We’re a major city in the U.S. We should have a franchise. You shouldn’t lose it, not the way we did.’ The former Sonics appreciated the gesture by the Mariners. ‘Athletes recognize one another. It’s nice the Mariners did this,’ said Wilkens, who led the team to the city’s only championship, the 1979 NBA title. ‘I’m a Mariners fan, I’m a baseball fan. I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. with the Dodgers. So I go way back to Jackie Robinson. But I’ve lived here 41 years. I’ve watched (basketball) grow. They’ve always had pretty good basketball here, Seattle U. Washington, Gonzaga, Washington State. Then things picked up because kids were seeing Sonics players and were motivated to stay with it.’ … ‘You have pride that you have a team, but when all of that went down it broke my heart,’ said Hawkins, who was part of the team that played the Bulls in the 1996 NBA finals. ‘It was disheartening in the fact that the fans were left out in the cold. Hopefully, we’ll get a team back because this city definitely deserves a team, with all tradition and history the Sonics have.'”

After having committed to play for Alabama in 2009 and Auburn in 2010, but failing to follow through because of academic issues, Shawn Kemp Jr, the son of former six-time NBA All-Star Shawn Kemp, will now be looking to finally kick off his college basketball career at Washington after the 6-10 forward signed with the Huskies program on Thursday. From the Seattle Times: “The Washington Huskies added Shawn Kemp Jr., who is the eldest son of legendary Sonic Shawn Kemp. The younger Kemp, a 6-10 forward, signed a financial aid agreement and completes the class of 2011, which includes: guards Tony Wroten Jr., Hikeem Stewart and Andrew Andrews and forwards Jernard Jarreau and Martin Breunig. Coach Lorenzo Romar said all six incoming freshmen are currently enrolled in summer classes at UW. “He’s got good size,” Romar said of Kemp. “He’s a very good athlete. He can run the floor. He’s the type of player that plays above the rim. He’s a real good defender.”

Yesterday, we ran a video of Vin Baker giving a halftime lecture to a group of high school freshmen, whom the former All-Star is currently coaching at Old Saybrook High School. Here’s the full feature that ran in SLAM 148, which is on newsstands right now. —Ed.

by Zack Burgess

“Don’t worry, he’s coming.”

I am waiting for a fallen member of the basketball elite. I’m in an SUV with Abel Mason, business manager to this former NBA All-Star, and two other guys I have never met. I am nervous. Not because of the company, but because of the uncertainty. It wouldn’t be the first time Vinnie Baker stood me up. Or let me down.

After three years of searching, I finally found this guy. Once or twice a year I reached out to his parents and gave them what I thought was an awesome sales pitch, on how people wanted to hear his story. The response on the other end of the phone was always: “Yeah, right. Talk to you later.”

Now it was actually happening. Does he look the same? Is he as funny as the guy I traveled with 15 years ago? Are all the rumors and innuendo about the squandering of millions true? Has he—and does he really want to—put his life back on track? Is he really an alcoholic? Good, bad or indifferent—how is his psyche?

Finally a black Jaguar pulls into the parking lot. And there through the glass I see Vin Baker. As my anticipation grows, he steps out of the car, all 6-11 of him. His eyes are clear, his skin is fine and he smiles as if he has never had a bad day. He looks as if he could put on a uniform today and go out and post what was once a usual line for him: 20 points and 10 rebounds. But the reality is this: He can’t.

On this late-winter afternoon, Baker is a long way from the NBA, the All-Star team, the Olympic team, the $86-million contract and the innocent young man who left the University of Hartford in ’93 as the eighth overall pick of the Milwaukee Bucks. He was here to talk about how he had put his life back on track with the same focus and vision that once made him a household name. Life had actually kicked Baker’s ass since he left the NBA, and he was here to answer the questions that everyone wanted to know: What happened?

“I think I experienced success way too fast,” Baker says. “I’m a tremendous competitor, which obviously got me to where I wanted to be as a basketball player. I wanted to get to the NBA, and I got there, but success came very fast for me. Once I experienced it, I think I kind of lost my lust for it. Not to say that I didn’t compete every night, but making the All-Star team four times in five years—after being cut from the basketball team in high school in the ninth grade—was overnight success. Within a span of eight years, I was an NBA All-Star. That’s a tremendous jump for anybody. It’s not exactly the Michael Jordan story, but it’s a story. I don’t know if I was necessarily ready to handle the success that God had given me at the time.”

By the time the Celtics acquired Baker from his second team, the Seattle SuperSonics, in July of ’02, he was already damaged goods. There had been roughly four years of binge drinking; he was out of control. Baker went from NBA All-Star to sparingly used backup center. In February of 2003, Baker was suspended after then-coach of the Boston Celtics Jim O’Brien smelled alcohol on his breath. It marked the beginning of the end of Baker’s career in the NBA. At the insistence of the Celtics, Baker sought treatment. He checked into Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, CT, for a 28-day rehabilitation program. From there it was on to 10 weeks of supervised outpatient therapy, with daily visits and testing at Silver Hill.

Someone should go to Springfield and chisel into the steps leading up to the Hall of Fame the names of the great players whose bodies failed them at the very moment they seemed assured of a spot inside. Penny Hardaway, Bernard King, Ralph Sampson, Grant Hill, Antonio McDyess, Tracy McGrady, Andrew Toney and Yao Ming are players who come to mind. Given that it is classified as a disease, should alcoholism be considered as devastating an injury as the ones that afflicted those players? Should Baker be accorded the same sympathy and concern?

When I run across people with incredible talents that only God could have given them, I can’t help but wonder how something so special could get so messed up. How does a multimillion-dollar athlete have his house foreclosed and owe over a million in back taxes? I don’t completely buy the drugs and alcohol excuse. Because there are those who drink and get high to their heart’s content, yet somehow they hold it together. Maybe it’s just bad decisions. Maybe, in the NBA, sometimes nice guys finish broke.

“I can’t say,” says Ray Allen. The Celtics sharpshooter played with Baker in Milwaukee and on the ’00 Olympic team that won Gold in Sydney. “I never really saw a change in him. He had pretty much been in a small town his whole life. And then going from the University of Hartford to Milwaukee, it was probably the best thing that could have happened to him, like it was for me coming into the NBA, because you didn’t have the trappings of NBA life that exist in other cities.”

When you talk to Baker and the people around him, it becomes painfully clear that his time with the SuperSonics was a turning point. You see, nobody likes to be traded. There’s a new coach, new system, new teammates and a new city to learn all over again. People, especially athletes, are creatures of habit. And Baker was no different.

“The worst thing to happen to him was going to Seattle,” agrees Allen. “As much as Seattle is a great city, I think the company he kept with him in Seattle wasn’t good for him. He was playing at such an All-Star caliber level. He went from being the best forward in the League at that time—even with Karl Malone in the NBA—to just being non-existent. You know, he was still a young man, and any nightlife activity that he was partaking in, the consumption of alcohol, you expect that to go along with the lifestyle. He was making great money, traveling to so many cities. That’s a part of [being an NBA star]…I think there was a point where he just let it consume him.”

THE GLOVE is undoubtedly one of the greatest guards and defensive players of all time. He had an incredible post game for a point guard, often abusing his smaller PG counterparts and was fearless on both ends of the court. He and Shawn Kemp led the Sonics to the ’96 Finals and represented the last great generation of pro hoops in Seattle. Payton was the NBA DPOY in ’96, a 9x All Star, 9x All-Defensive First team, and won a title with Miami in 2006. He was also one of the game’s greatest/most irritating trash talkers and with this came the third-most technical fouls in NBA history. Payton holds 2 Olympic Gold Medals, is 3rd on the all-time NBA steals list, and the only player in NBA history with 20k points, 5k boards, 8k assists, and 2k steals. I could go on all day about GP. Enjoy the vid by Kblaze.

@Schneezy

For more old school videos, check out SLAMtv in the Media section.

Have an old school video you want to see in FOTS? Send the link to slamteam@harris-pub.com

Originally published in SLAM 2, it’s time for this Shawn Kemp cover story to see the light of day internet.—Ed.

by Touré

The quiet of a loser’s locker room is suffocating. It paralyzes; it makes you want to run. Players look down, keep to themselves and tiptoe through the shower-dress-interview ritual so as not to bump into one of the shoulda-coulda ghosts hanging around.

This locker room is a New Jersey where the visiting Seattle SuperSonics have just lost a close game to the Nets. In the middle of the silence is the 24-year-old All-Star and ’94 Dream Teamer, Shawn Kemp. As the game sinks further and further into the past, Kemp’s stern playing face gives way to the emotions of his eyes-huge, deep-set eyes piercing with a brightness one would expect to find in a child. Bookending them are gigantic cheekbones, which sit directly below a pair of deeply-sunken temples.

This is not the man I’ve come to see. I hoped to find the Shawn Kemp whose savage alley-oop dunks seem to rock my TV, the Shawn Kemp who shoots jumpers with a passionate authority and wrists cocked, the Shawn Kemp who leaves rims rattling and fans screaming and whose dark growls ring into the back rows of every arena in which he plays.

Instead, I’m facing a man twice my size, who’s never seen me before, who’s trying to wipe off frustration along with shower-water, asking him what happened to cause his team to lose by three points. Imagine an ego like a mine field; each question is a step into danger. Envision also, a man who scored 26 points and had a chance to win the game. Down by a point, Kemp grabbed the ball, the Nets Derrick Coleman fouled him, and Kemp heaved a pathetic attempt at a shot. An inbounds pass and a pathetic heave later and the game was over.

“You gotta do what you gotta do to stop a ballplayer from scoring that late in the game, under a minute. He probably did the same thing I would’ve done,” Kemp says diplomatically about Coleman’s foul, returning to the silence that has dominated our conversation. When not open, Kemp’s mouth is often crooked, from the viewer’s left. His lips meet in a jagged line, approximating a mountain range. As I reach hopefully for a harmless question, he turns toward me and reveals small ears that stick out from his close-cropped fade like little wings.

“I thought we had control most of the ballgame,” he answers, his deep voice coming up from the middle of his chest, punctuated by a slight but present lisp. “We had a chance to win several times. But we’ve been struggling the last few weeks.”

It’s February and the Sonics have the league’s best record. But this slip suggests that the team may not be hanging on to the lead for the long haul. Can the same be said for its star?

Coach George Karl may have an answer. “I think the next thing he needs to add to the respect area is to win a championship. If he wins a championship, I think he jumps into that real elite area. The next great superstar is gonna be the next guy who wins a championship.”

——

It’s a cold Sunday in Minneapolis, but since the Black Millionaires Club has come out to play, the rest of the world-at least the section of it that cares about basketball-has followed. “When you watch those guys in the All-Star game, you’re watching the Black Millionaires Club,” says Nelson George, author of Elevating The Game: Black Men And Basketball. “If you ever get any NBA players and just talk to them and get them comfortable, you’ll really hear how they feel about each other as men. Who’s a punk and who’s not a punk. Who they respect and who they don’t respect. Who’s got fine women and who doesn’t have fine women. I don’t think that Kemp’s considered one of the boys on that level. He’s still considered a new jack, which has gotta be tough for him because he’s been in the league longer than most of the kids who’re getting the respect now.”

Though Kemp has a superstar’s resume, there are critical things he needs before he can move into the upper echelon of true NBA superstars-especially as judged by the BMC itself.

“Kemp really is rap music in the real sense,” George continues. “His game, still, is relatively raw. Obviously, he’s refined it by playing NBA ball, but look at Alonzo Mourning and Chris Webber, who are in the same physical range, and the polish they have. Kemp has really had to learn on the go, and I think that’s why he’s never gotten the respect that he wants. This is the first time that he was voted to the All-star team and there’s a reason for that. At this point, for him to be a championship player, there’s another leap he has to make in his game.”

Kemp’s rawness is a leftover from his short, unfortunate college career: He graduated from Concord High School in Elkhart, Indiana in 1987 as one of the most highly-sought after players in the country. But he became hated in his own state when he declined to attend the University of Bobby Knight, opting instead for Kentucky. When he failed to score 700 on his SATs, the abuse began in earnest. “Stupid, dumb, greedy and disloyal” are some of the kinder words Indiana boosters had for the 17-year-old.

He had to sit out his freshman year at Kentucky, while the Wildcats’ program was under the microscope of the local papers and the NCAA. A package containing $1000 sent allegedly to recruit Chris Mills had come to light a few months before Kemp arrived, and it now appeared that the entire Kentucky program was headed for probation.

The final straw came on Oct. 28, 1988 when Lexington police claimed that Kemp had tried to pawn two chains stolen from then-Coach Eddie Sutton’s son, Sean.

That was enough for Kemp. He hadn’t stolen the chains (many believe he was taking the rap for a teammate), and now it looked like he’d never play ball for Kentucky. He transferred to Trinity Junior College in Athens, Texas, an obscure school in the middle of the desert and didn’t even tryout for the team. A year later, he declared himself eligible for the 1989 draft and was picked by Seattle in the second round as a “6-10 project.”

While that absence of a college coaching and tutelage has not kept him from becoming a star, the lack of coaching is evident in his game. For example, his unorthodox ump shot: He launches the ball from the right and just above his head rather than completely above and in front. His right elbow comes near, though not above shoulder level; and while his left hand finishes pointing straight at the basket, his right continues curling abruptly down, ending in a painful arc.

EMPHATIC, WITH AUTHORITY, BEAST…. those are just a few of the things that come to mind when thinking of Shawn Kemp (early 90s Shawn Kemp). Dude was a straight RIM ROCKER. Remember what he did to Alton Lister?!?! I think I used to check under my bed for the Reign Man when I was a kid, not the Boogie Man. Check out his top 10 below.

The 6th Man: Do me a favor and go find some scissors, some tape and a black magic marker. This won’t take long. Promise. Okay now turn to page…um…65 of the October issue with Zo on the cover. That’s right, the Pro Preview. Now draw a line through the “Juwan Howard” in column three, line four. Pay attention: this next part gets tricky.

Go ahead and cut the Miami Heat, at No. 2 in the Eastern Division, out of the preview and place them where the Washington Bullets used to be, at No. 4. Great, now cut out the Bullets and place them where the Miami Heat used to be at No. 2. Orlando, Boston, New Jersey and Philly, thankfully, stay right where they are.

No, you’re not done. Now, turn to page 78. There are three names ya need to nix in the Houston Rockets, at No. 3 in the Midwest Division-Horry, Brown and Cassell. Cut the Rockets out and place them where the San Antonio Spurs used to be, at No.2. On the very next page, at No. 3 in the Western Division, are the Phoenix Suns. Draw lines through all three references to Charles Barkley-“Sir Charles” in line 1, “Barkley” in line 3 and “Charles” in line 16. And you don’t have to move the Suns; they ain’t going anywhere near the Lakers or the Supersonics (but the Kings could catch ’em from below.)

All right, you’re done.

Thanks.

P.S. So anyway, we think this issue’s pretty cool. Between Kemp, Mitch and Glide we got the NBA’s West Side on lockdown (yeah, we read your letters). And there’s also our pre-season All-Americans, Tim Duncan, Cincinnati and an ill College Preview to satisfy your college jones. Not to mention an old-school interview with a still-defiant Rick Barry and a not-so-old-school interview with Mo Cheeks. We also had NBA photog Nat Butler follow Dream Team III around for some pretty fresh behind-the-scenes shots. Other than that…there’s a lot more to keep you for a few weeks ’til we can crank the next one out. And believe me, that one’s gonna blow your mind.

QUOTES OF THE DAY
“Aw, hell no.” — Nate McMillan, asked if he was surprised Bruce Bowen was invited to play with Team USA.

“They changed the basketball.” — Bob Sura, on how long it’s been since he played basketball.

THE LINKS
• Forget making the team play more cohesively or building a better roster, right now Coach K‘s biggest contribution to Team USA has been making LeBrontuck in his jersey! That and forcing everyone to drive GM cars in accordance with Coach K’s sponsorship deal.

Also strange that the story mentions Coach K speaking to the team as a whole and “littering” his talks with Polish jokes. Have Polish jokes been his secret weapon all these years?

• The man running the Charlotte BETcats, that Michael Jordan guy, won the latest round in his court case against Karla Knafel, the woman MJ thought he impregnated in the ’90s and allegedly agreed to pay her to keep quiet. Only problem was the baby wasn’t his.

• The Fort Worth Star Telegram says there’s some simmering beef in Dallas between the Mavs and Avery Johnson over AJ’s contract. Mark Cuban responds and says there’s no beef.

• If you were going to write something ripping a sports commissioner and accusing him of ruining his league, don’t you think the David Stern Robot would be about the last guy you’d want on your bad side? Not if you’re this guy, I guess.

• It’s always good to get a shoutout from the mainstream press. It’s not so good when it’s in a story about Shawn Kemp and drugs. Speaking of Shawn, he faced the media this weekend and claims he hasn’t used drugs in two years and is willing to take a test to prove it.

• Hey Chauncey, we’ve all been there. You make a promise to your wifey, and then next thing you know you’re looking for ways to get out of it. (Nice photo with that story — didn’t they have any larger images?)

• Good long feature on Bruce Bowen and why he is the American Dream …..The Suns Dance team tryouts…do I really need to say anything else? ….. Catching up with Bobby Sura (bet he was at the tanning salon) ….. Why you should avoid Denny’s (low here).

The 6th Man: IT WAS EARLY March and the playground by my apartment was covered with two inches of ice rivaling Lillehammer’s best. So my best friend Rob and I were shooting baskets in the gym around the corner. We got a great hoop, one of those slightly loose breakaway rims that anything near the hole rings with a boiiiing, just like TV.

“So if he makes it, he’ll be the first Dominican in the NBA, right?,” said Rob, launching a shot with his toes just outside the three point line. Net.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said as my miss clanged loudly. Boiiing. “But who cares?”

“Yeah,” said Rob, rattling off another swish. “Who cares?”

Who cares. We were talking about Felipe Lopez, the 6’5″ Harlem high schooler and the top vote getter in our SLAM All-American poll. Now you can be damn sure his family cares if he makes the NBA. The thousand-or-so screaming Dominicans who watch his every move probably care. Felipe cares.

But to my mind, I like Felipe just as he is. I’ve had as much fun this year watching Felipe play as watching Jalen Rose or Dennis Rodman or even Shawn Kemp. (At least Felipe can come say Yo after the game). And I’ve had even more fun this year playing hoop.

And that’s what SLAM is all about. The guys in this magazine aren’t statistics, they aren’t meat for future Rotisserie leagues. They’re players, just like you and me. Well maybe they’re a little better. For now. But I’m working on some new post-up moves, and if I can just… nail… this NBA three…